Hello all and welcome to the round up of what’s been going on in the Universe this week. If you’d like to find out more, or get involved yourself, check out the Carnival’s homepage over at Universe Today.

Before we get started, an important request: Nicole at NoisyAstronomer.com is asking people to help the residents of Louisa County, Virginia, which was the epicenter of the 5.8 magnitude east cost earthquake that happened earlier this year.

Next up are stories from two tweetups (an informal meeting of people brought together via twitter) that took place recently. Weather Chat and Galileo’s Pendulum share their experiences of meeting astronauts from the final shuttle flight at the STS 135 tweetup in Washington DC. There are some more photos of the event from NASA HQ here. Meanwhile open.NASA and Ian Kluft visited NASA Ames for a tweetup in honour of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA (or the aeroplane with a telescope in the back, that flies even though there’s a giant hole cut in the side, as I like to call it). Again, there’s more photos of the event here (including the one above) and here, as well as twovideos from the day.

Finally, if these stories have inspired you, here’s two competitions to get your imaginations going. The 2012 Jim Bean Memorial Writing Contest is looking for “science fiction writers who create positive stories about man’s future in space”. No pulp fiction about large-breasted alien ladies in distant galaxies please! If film’s more your thing enter the American Museum of Natural History’s Beyond Planet Earth contest. They’re looking for original, out-of-this-world ideas on the future of space exploration in 3 minutes or less – watch their introductory video to find out more: